Superfund site in Fillmore to be discussed at Thursday meeting

Chevron, EPA officials to visit Fillmore

Representatives from Chevron Corp. and the Environmental Protection Agency will attend a meeting Thursday in Fillmore to update community members on the status of plans to clean up groundwater and soil contamination at the 56-acre Pacific Coast Pipeline Superfund site.

The meeting at San Cayetano Elementary School, 514 Mountain View St., will start with an open house from 6 to 7 p.m. and will be followed by a presentation from 7 to 8:30 p.m.

Representing Chevron will be Bill Almas, senior project manager for the company's real estate and business and services, and Leslie Klinchuch, Chevron's project manager for the Superfund cleanup project. The EPA will be represented by Holly Hadlock, remedial project manager, and Jackie Lane, community involvement coordinator. Mary McDaniel, a Chevron consultant, will discuss health concerns relating to the site and answer questions.

The Superfund site is owned by Texaco, a subsidiary of Chevron since 2001. The site has two plumes of benzene-contaminated groundwater and many areas of lead-contaminated soil.

Benzene, which is a carcinogen, leaked from disposal pits on the site, which is east of Pole Creek, just outside the Fillmore city limits. Texaco operated a refinery there from 1915 to 1950, producing gasoline, diesel and fuel oil, according to Hadlock. It was converted into a crude-oil pumping station after the refinery was closed and dismantled. Although pumping operations ceased in 2000, it already had been deemed a Superfund site in 1989.

The lead tainting the soil was a common gasoline additive, Hadlock said.

In late September, the EPA issued a record of decision on the methods that will be used to clean up the benzene plumes and the lead.

Once the soil contamination is fixed, Chevron plans to convert much of the property to commercial and recreational use in a project called Fillmore Works.

Hadlock said the groundwater cleanup will go on for decades but that redevelopment of the site conceivably can proceed after the tainted soil is removed to an on-site impermeable pit and capped. That should be done by the middle of 2013.